February 11, 2013 |

MEGHA SATYANARAYANA/DETROIT FREE PRESS

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

When Adela Garcia moved to Pullman in western Michigan, she was 10, deaf from birth and had never seen American Sign Language.
To
communicate in her Spanish-speaking world, she used gestures and a sign
language that only her family understood. Eleven years later, Garcia,
21, has a 3.8 grade point average and a letter of admission to Gallaudet
University, the world's only liberal arts college for deaf and
hard-of-hearing students. She's in Washington, D.C., at the university's
English Language Institute, honing her English so she can tackle her
freshman year of classes. But staying in school has been one challenge
after another.
Days before the spring semester started, Garcia
lost the grant that was supposed to pay for her English classes. She
told the Free Press through an interpreter that she was disappointed,
but determined to stay positive.
Back in Michigan, her teachers in
the Van Buren Intermediate School District were stunned -- they said
coming back to Pullman would mean fewer post-high school opportunities.
So, in the span of two weeks in January, Garcia's teachers turned to
Facebook and raised more than $12,000 to make up for the grant and get
her into that spring semester.
On Jan. 25, the last day her fees
could be paid, Garcia learned she could attend her spring semester
English classes. That day, she posted a video message that was captioned
to the people on Facebook who helped her stay in school. "Hello, I'm
here in class," she signed, smiling broadly, with subtitles below.
"Finally for raised money for college. Thank you so much to everyone.
Love you all."
One of Garcia's first teachers, Amy Fleischmann,
said the young woman is not only the first person in her family to go to
college, but the first to graduate from the district's program for deaf
and hard-of-hearing students in Lawrence. She teared up as she
described why she and Garcia's other teachers turned to friends and
strangers to help pay for their student's future.
"We see such
potential in her and we know she can do it," said Fleishmann, "There's
not opportunity for her here. She's paving the way."

Starting at square one

On Garcia's first day of school, Fleishmann and her other teachers
were challenged -- the little girl had spent several years in Mexican
schools with no services for deaf people. She not only had to learn
American Sign Language (ASL) to take any course from math to history,
but she also had to learn English, upon which ASL was based.
"We
pretty much started at square one," said Fleischmann, now a teacher
consultant with the Van Buren Intermediate School District.
Garcia, who was born in Washington, moved to Mexico with her mother when she was very young. After returning to Michigan,
she was eager to learn. Through things like cooking and scrapbooking,
she started learning English words and the signs that went with them.
But every night, she went home to Spanish. To keep English fresh in her
mind, she said, she watched television with closed captioning on. She
studied in the evenings. And, slowly, English began to click.
"The
first year of school, I did not understand anything," said Garcia in
sign language. "Once I learned how to communicate and express myself, it
really skyrocketed."

Broadening horizons

There isn't a lot to do in Pullman, said Garcia. The unincorporated
community is in Lee Township, about halfway between Allegan and South
Haven.
It's a one-intersection settlement, said Allegan County
Clerk Joyce Watts, and in the most agriculturally-rich county in
Michigan, Garcia's area is an exception. "Lee Township has some of the
most beautiful lakes," said Watts, "but it's clay. It's not good
farmland."
Yet the area is attractive to both poor and rich
people, because of nearly nonexistent property taxes and building codes.
Chicago retirees live next to lifelong Pullmanites who live next to
farm workers in an area that lacks a centralized water system.
"You have very marginal dwellings and very beautiful homes," Watts said.
Garcia
said for fun, kids play in the woods and go to the mall. But not many
kids from her area go to college, and with limited options in Pullman as
a deaf person, her teachers decided it was time to expand her horizons.
An
opportunity came to visit Gallaudet during her junior year, and Garcia
and four others in the program for deaf students raised the money to hop
a plane to the nation's capital. She wasn't sure what Washington, D.C.,
was going to be like, but she was ready for the chance to explore.
At
Gallaudet, Garcia was entranced. She said everywhere she went, hands
were flying, and in the gestures, she could understand what was going
on.
"I walked in and was like, there were so many deaf people
signing -- the teachers, the students -- it was a dream come true," she
said.
Fleischmann said the visit was a one-of-a-kind experience for the students.
"It
opened the student's eyes to options outside of our small town," she
said. "The kids were able to go to Subway and order their sandwiches
because everyone signed."
And Garcia was hooked. Back in Pullman,
she continued to study, baby-sitting her nieces and nephews while her
older siblings worked. In her senior year, she applied for undergraduate
admission with the goal of studying graphic art and design. She was
accepted, but conditionally. Her English still wasn't strong enough to
do college work, the university said, despite the strides she'd made. To
get to that level of English proficiency, she needed more English
classes and decided to enroll in Gallaudet's English Language Institute.
At the end of the summer, she bid Michigan farewell and moved into a
dorm in Washington, D.C., to study English all day, nearly every day.

Overcoming obstacles

Gallaudet's English Language Institute has five levels of study
students go through to master English, said Ali Sanjabi, a operations
staff member at the school. Garcia tested at Level Three and must pass
Level Five to have the best chances of scoring well on the ACT and
Gallaudet's proficiency exams.
Students take anywhere from one
semester to three years to master enough English and American Sign
Language to be able to do college work, Sanjabi said. Garcia said she
hoped to be done in two semesters and finished her first in December,
going from Level Three to Level Four. That's when she lost the funding.
Fleischmann
said the vocational agency that gave her the grant didn't feel she was
progressing fast enough, even though she was only one level from
proficiency as the spring semester started.
"It was like the rug was pulled out from under her. It was just obstacle after obstacle," said Fleischmann.
She
and Rebecca Sidders, another teacher, said they couldn't let Garcia
come home. So the women reached out to everyone they knew on Facebook.
They shared her story and encouraged her to post to the page. The money
started coming in.
One of her donors was Jacqueline Deneau, 62, of
Hartford. After seeing Garcia's video in her Facebook feed, she decided
to donate to the young woman, even though she didn't know her.
"This girl is trying so hard to get educated," said Deneau. "I just had compassion for what she's gone through."
As
they reached the $10,000 mark with just a day or two spare, there was
another setback. The grant had been pulled before all her fall payments
had been made. In addition to the $10,000 for spring tuition, there was
suddenly a bill for $2,000 more in fall payments.
Sidders and Fleischmann made one final plea, and people from Michigan to Oregon and everywhere between pitched in.
Garcia's
last bill was paid. She went to class and her teachers were able to
relax. Garcia, their first graduate, was back to learning and living in a
world she has made so much bigger than those few hand gestures from
when she was 10.
"She's had to adapt so much," said Fleischmann.
"It was a little overwhelming. For her to be -- 11 years later --
college bound, is really amazing." Contact Megha Satyanarayana: 313-222-8767 or megha@freepress.com